Adventure in 2024, I promise!
I know, I know… some of you have wondered what’s been going on during my radio silence. I can understand… with nothing new posted in over a month, it feels like I fell off the earth!
But I’m still here. While I’ve made a ton of headway on endeavors that got pushed to the side while finishing the Saga of a Space Freighter series, my other writing project(s) have only been plodding along. This definitely sat in my craw like a stone as 2023 wound to a close and left me little to speak about on this front.
But that all changes this year! But why you ask? I finally have begun to understand how I want to write my next story (or 3) and it’s all because I needed to go back to the basics… the theories of storycraft as it were.
I’ve been reading over the old tried and true Hero’s Journey, the 3 Act Structure, Character Motivation, and all that fun stuff. I’ve gone on a whirlwind ride on Dan Harmon’s Story Circle Structure, the 4 Act Plot Structure, and even the Carl Jung 12 Archetypes.
(If you’re looking for other tools for writing, Myers-Briggs personality tool can be a useful character one (personality examinations are great for this), the Fichtean Curve and Blake Snyder’s “Save the Cat Beat Structure” are a couple of story structures. There’s a bunch of them out there.)
And this year shows promise for Adventure!
I’ll be attending my first Writers Conference this year, aka the Association of Writers and Writing Programs. I know what you’re thinking, “but you’ve been writing for years now. How could this be your first one?” Truth be told, my time to take advantage of a writer’s conference was during the ‘dark times’… the ‘plague years’ or whatever nickname you have for the Covid outbreak.
I also plan on hitting some conventions away from my home state. I’ve got a pretty large list compiled, I just need to pick and choose the ones that are viable and hope that I get selected.
Oh yeah, I also plan to have the next Nun With a Gun out, too!
So much adventure!
Jon Gray Lang.com 